Much of the content that libraries today provide to their patrons is obtained through electronic content subscriptions. To ensure access to the electronic content, libraries must provide vendors of electronic content with current information such as contact and distribution information and information about the electronic content to which they would like access. Management of electronic content subscriptions is an important and often time-consuming task that libraries must perform to ensure they receive the content they want and need to serve their patrons. Management of electronic content subscriptions is also an important task that vendors must perform to ensure their customers are provided with access to the electronic content they have selected.
Libraries often rely on consortia to facilitate library access to electronic content developed and offered by numerous vendors. A large or midsize consortium may provide its users with access to hundreds of online databases and thousands of electronic journals hosted on dozens of sites. Like libraries and vendors, consortia also require accurate and current information to facilitate the services they provide to the libraries and to the vendors that supply them with electronic content. A many-to-many problem, therefore, exists in the exchange of data among libraries, consortia, and electronic content vendors.
Currently, many vendors maintain separate closed registries of essentially the same kinds of library information such as contacts, geographic sites, IP addresses, etc. Libraries are expected to maintain this data in each vendor registry if they want to ensure continuity of service from the vendors. Each time a piece of data changes—such as a phone number, contact name, or Internet IP address—library staff must take the time to notify each vendor separately, and often by various means such as web interfaces, email messages, paper forms, faxes, and phone calls. Because this approach requires contacting each vendor separately using a different means, the possibility of “stale” data at one or more vendor sites is great.
Similar problems of data currency apply to consortia that serve libraries as well as vendors. To keep their services active, electronic resource professionals typically visit 30 or more vendor applications to maintain identifying information about the member institutions while using many different tools to complete the maintenance tasks. Worse still, staff at member institutions may first have to register their identity data with the consortium, which often is then re-keyed or submitted into vendor interfaces by consortium staff. In addition to experiencing time delays that could result in the entry of stale data, the re-keying of data may result in the entry of inaccurate data that further delays the delivery of electronic content to a particular member institution.
Another problem with current systems is a lack of security. There is no way to share the data or updates to data with multiple partners at one time and in a way that provides any type of protection from public disclosure. Email messages allow the same data to be shared easily with multiple parties, but the messages comprising the data that partners need are subject to interception and review by unauthorized parties. Email messages can be encrypted to prevent their disclosure but this approach requires providing the sending party with the ability to encrypt messages and the receiving parties with the ability to decrypt messages. Closed registries and other approaches may support secure connections to prevent the dissemination of information to authorized parties but they do not support sharing of the data or updates with multiple parties at once. A party that needs to update its information must visit each registry that has its information.
Librarians need the ability to send updates of data to every partner, or risk experiencing a loss of electronic content service for the library and its patrons. The task is time-consuming and librarians spent a great deal of time updating vendor and consortia partners when information about their institutions changes. There are currently 9,100 main public libraries and 3,500 academic libraries in the United States. Assuming each library has 10 contacts that it must maintain, 126,000 interactions (63,000 person hours or 2,625 days) are required to distribute current information. There is a need for a system and method for updating and sharing library profile data with partners that provides efficient and secure distribution of the data so that libraries can continue to serve their patrons with access to electronic content.